Bitcoin Lightning Network Will Have 700M Users By 2030: Report

A new report projects that the Bitcoin BTC/USD Lightning Network will have around 700 million users in 2030.

What Happened: An analysis by Arcane Research titled the “State of Lightning” anticipates gaming and streaming video and audio to be major use cases for Lightning. The report predicts streaming companies such as Spotify and Netflix will be able to utilize the network for micro-transactions to offer pay-per-minute, or per-second, streaming services. An estimated 700 million users will be utilizing Lightning in this way by 2030.

The analysis anticipates that around 90% of the citizens of El Salvador will use the Lightning network in 2026.

The report indicates if other countries where access to banking is difficult also adopt Bitcoin, then by 2030 there will be 50 million Lightning users generating $17 billion in payments annually for things like wire transfers and household spending.

Why It Matters: It’s been almost three years since the Lightning network went live on Bitcoin, and it now has 17,000 nodes and holds a capacity of almost 3,000 BTC.

“As of writing, the public Bitcoin capacity on Lightning equals more than $120 million, with users across the world finding value in the option to conduct near-instant small payments at very negligible fees,” the report indicates.

Related Link: Jim Cramer Identifies 'Major Reason To Buy Bitcoin'